Well, that’s the only caption that seems to fit this one. This is in St. Maarten, Dutch side, at the cruise docks, watching one of the Ocean Cruises vessels come into port during a rain shower. Ocean Cruises is basically boatloads of English people, all traveling together, and we met numerous of them on our trip. In St. Maarten we shared a cab with a couple who had suffered seasickness the entire time. Poor things. In any case, I did wonder at the time if it would be sort of fun to do a cruise on an English boat, or a French boat. Would you be getting two vacations for the price of one?
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This is a mid-sized vessel in the Caribbean cruising market. Some of the boats we saw – one Princess boat in particular – seemed too big to float. And we didn’t catch a glimpse of the Oasis, which must be 2-3 times the size of this one. Floating islands themselves, they bring tourists in for a day and then depart. On the one hand, cruise traffic seems to produce less economic activity, as many will choose to eat on board. On the other hand, the most destructive phenomenon I saw in the Caribbean was how some islands, particularly Barbados, are becoming retreats for the super-rich while local populations are pushed into smaller and smaller circles of shanties. I guess I’d rather see the cruise ships than what I saw in Barbados. More on that in a later post – in which I’ll compare two islands, one in which the people still seem to own their land, and one in which they clearly do not.
Below is a quaint outpost of empire, the Dutch navy parked across from the OC ship above. Protecting St. Maarten from lord knows what. Behind you can see development spreading up the sides of the hills on the Dutch side of the island.
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